The Chaos Of Black Friday

I don’t know about you, but the anticipation for this Black Friday was blown way out of proportion. The deals weren’t nearly as good as last year, and a lot of stores were relatively empty after the early morning doorbuster rush. Unfortunately, a Long Island Wal-Mart store employee died due to the incoming stampede (three other individuals were injured). 🙁

You would think that in an era dominated by computers, Black Friday and other “early bird” deals could be implemented in a far less dangerous manner. Imagine if all the companies who took part in Black Friday offered their deals online to the first ‘x’ customers after 5 AM. Not only would these companies save tremendously on payroll, but consumers would save on gas and having to wait in long lines. It’d be a win-win, but apparently, we rather hear about a handful of people being injured each year for no reason.

Instead of waiting in line, my brother and I purchased two 10.3 megapixel Kodak digital cameras online last night. We really didn’t need anything else except some blank CD-R’s, batteries, and noise-cancelling headphones (all of which were readily available from Radio Shack this afternoon.)

Now I’m sure those poor, unfortunate people who get trampled would hate to see themselves on a video playback of the stampede, but imagine what the woman in this video must be thinking. Makes me laugh everytime.